Get Your Head Together
Your brain — the organ that’s trying to make sense of these very words — is divided into two hemispheres; right and left. Of course, you learned that years ago, and to this day, chances are that one side or the other defines you. If you’re the math and science, reason and logic, plan and organize type, you’re left brain. If you’re music and art, emotion and intuition, invention and improv type, you’re right brain.
Left brain people read sitting up, right brain people read lying down. Simple as that.
The fact is, while the two sides of the brain may function differently, they don’t operate independently. They communicate with each other and it’s possible to witness the collaboration in astrophysicists who play guitar (Queen’s Brian May); mathematicians who sing like angels (Art Garfunkel); and rigorous scientists who are also painters, sculptors, and architects (Leonardo da Vinci). Their genius may be rare, but their ability to combine logic and linear thinking with ingenuity, and soaring imagination is a skill available to all of us.
So, if you’re a left-brainer and you don’t have a creative bone in your body, remember: you do have a creative brain. You just have to exercise it. Right-brainers need exercise, too. Fortunately, one rule applies to both: it helps to change your habits. Practice doing what doesn’t come naturally. If you’re an accountant who goes by the numbers, learn to sing, learn to dance, learn to relax. If you’re a creative writer with your head in the clouds, learn to play chess, do the Sunday Times’ crossword, come down to earth and stay awhile.
And, if you don’t know which side you’re on, try this simple exercise: Sign your name. Then do it backwards (start with the last letter and head for the first). Next, try it upside down. It forces you to think as well as visualize. And you have to overcome the feeling that “it’s impossible.” It isn’t, is it?
Are there other ways to exercise the brain? Yes there are and your app store has dozens of clever applications that claim to do it. But the “change your habits” approach is probably easier and more reliable. And by simply opening yourself to new experiences, you’re training both sides of your brain to collaborate more efficiently. And happily.
The mind boggles.
